The invention relates to apparatus for determining the timewise progress of the drying of a damp material sample, comprising means for producing a drying air stream of defined temperature, flow quantity and moisture content, a retaining device for holding the material sample during the drying, a nozzle system for delivering the drying air stream to the material sample held by the retaining device, and means for intermittently weighing the material sample during the drying.
In drying technology the drying properties of the materials to be dried are generally an unknown quantity. Thus in the drying of textiles an extraordinarily large number of parameters influence the drying properties so that it is only possible to make an exact forecast of the drying properties after extensive preliminary tests. However, such preliminary tests involve a great deal of work and are therefore very costly.
It is known in the art for the timewise progress of the drying of a damp material sample to be determined approximately by drying the material sample in a testing arrangement and repeatedly during the drying process removing the sample from the testing arrangement and weighing it. However, such an operation is very complicated and time-consuming; in addition, the degree of accuracy which can be achieved in this way is very limited.